As we get closer to the 15th anniversary of Heather’s confession, we’ve been thinking about a question we’re not sure we’ve ever really talked about before:
What would our marriage look like today if the affair had never happened?
It’s a strange question, because obviously we would never wish for the pain, betrayal, and brokenness that came with that season. But we also know what God has done in our marriage through it.
We honestly believe we would probably still be married today. We were both committed to marriage and probably would have stayed together no matter what. But we’re not sure we would have been happy. We may have spent the rest of our lives being good roommates, raising our kids, going to church, doing all the right things on the outside, while never really dealing with what was happening underneath the surface.
The affair forced everything into the light.
In this episode, we talk about some of the things we can see now that we couldn’t see then. Heather shares how much of her focus in marriage had become about what Rusty could do for her and how God began teaching her to serve differently. Rusty talks about realizing that even some of the “good husband” things he was doing were tied to insecurity and wanting affirmation.
Now, 15 years later and entering the empty-nest years, one of the things we’re most grateful for is pretty simple: we genuinely like being together.
We hate what happened after 15 years of marriage. But we’re incredibly grateful that God didn’t waste it. He used the hardest season of our lives to expose what was broken, strip away the masks, and teach us what it looks like to actually know…and be known by…each other.
If your marriage looks fine on the outside but you know there’s distance underneath, we hope this conversation challenges you not to wait for a crisis before you go deeper.
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